Book 8 - Parliament of Victoria

PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS
1646 COUNCIL Wednesday, 1 June 2011
of failings of the inept former Labor government. I
humbly call on this house to reject this motion.
Debate adjourned on motion of Ms PENNICUIK
(Southern Metropolitan).
Debate adjourned until Wednesday, 8 June.
PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS
Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) — I move:
That this house requires the Leader of the Government to
table in the Council by 12 noon on Tuesday, 14 June 2011,
any letter or letters sent from the Minister for Agriculture and
Food Security to the Yarra Ranges Shire Council, in relation
to relocation of VicForests office to the municipality.
This is about the curious letter sent by the Minister for
Agriculture and Food Security to the Yarra Ranges
Shire Council in relation to the seemingly simple,
non-controversial matter of the relocation of the
VicForests office to the municipality. We read in the
Herald Sun that in response to the Shire of Yarra
Ranges Council moving a motion saying it will
purchase its photocopying paper from certain
environmentally friendly sources, the Minister for
Agriculture and Food Security, Mr Walsh, has
threatened the council and asked it to withdraw or
reverse its previous lawful vote. Otherwise he will not
allow VicForests to relocate its office, apparently from
the Melbourne CBD, to somewhere in the municipality.
This report in the Herald Sun, if it is correct, is
disturbing on a number of levels.
VicForests is not under the direct departmental control
of the minister. VicForests is a state-owned enterprise,
and it also has an act which gives it a commercial
charter. If VicForests decides to relocate its office from
the CBD to Healesville or Yarra Glen based on a
commercial decision, then that is entirely a decision for
it, and I would expect it to make such a commercial
decision. Clearly rents are going to be a lot cheaper in
Healesville than they are in Melbourne’s CBD, so that
is one consideration. On the other hand, most of what
VicForests does is lobby the state government for
further subsidies, so maybe it does need to be located
close to Treasury. But in any case it is concerning that
the minister believes what goes on here is decided
simply on his whim, rather than the formal process of a
ministerial direction to a state-owned enterprise.
The more concerning part is the Brimbankesque nature
of Mr Walsh attempting to dictate council business. The
findings of the Ombudsman’s report into Brimbank
council, and subsequently the report made by the
inspector of municipal administration, were quite clear.
Mr Finn interjected.
Mr BARBER — The Ombudsman noted in relation
to some of the people that Mr Finn is now interjecting
about:
Such individuals have not taken an oath of office to act in the
best interests of the community serviced by the council and
are not subject to the conduct rules of the Local Government
Act. Their influence was exerted behind closed doors and at
times for their own personal or political motivations.
If that is a risk in relation to some of the people Mr Finn
might like to name, I am sure it is an equal risk for the
Minister for Agriculture and Food Security. He has not
taken an oath to look after the best interests of the shire
of Yarra Ranges, and it seems he is exerting his
influence behind closed doors. If nothing else, I hope to
get that influence out in the open. The Brimbank
analogy included local members of Parliament, and the
Ombudsman said that their influence had pervaded the
council. He further noted that:
Where undue influence is exerted it can impede councillors’
ability to make objective and independent decisions in the
interests of their community. Where councillors allow such
influence to be exercised over them, they place themselves at
risk of not being able to exercise their functions in accordance
with their statutory obligations.
It is, of course, entirely the business of the Yarra
Ranges Council as to where it buys its paper and under
what criteria and, for that matter, the very real and
direct social, environmental and economic impacts of
woodchipping on the Yarra Ranges Council itself.
According to the Herald Sun, the letter — and we need
to see the letter to verify this — stated that Reflex, a
product of Australian Paper, was an ‘important client’
of VicForests. That may be an important consideration
for the board of VicForests, but Yarra Ranges Council
has a set of considerations that it has to go through, and
in this case it seems that the minister has used a form of
blackmail. In fact, he has tried to cause detriment to the
council, echoing section 76D of the Local Government
Act 1989 — that is, if the council did not reverse a
previous lawful vote, he was going to take it out on that
council area.
After the Ombudsman’s report into Brimbank, the
Scales report noted the very significant emphasis on the
issue of improper influence. Scales then went on to use
a letter from the St Albans branch of the Australian
Labor Party which advocated a particular position on a
vote of the council as evidence of an attempt to bind
particular councils to the organisation’s position rather
than have them assess the particular matter on its merits
as required under the Local Government Act 1989.
That was the smoking gun that caused the Labor and
Liberal parties to get together and to sack Brimbank